Positioning Techniques for Teaching Swimming

Posted by Glenn Mills on Nov 24, 2009 08:05AM (12,760 views)

Steve Haufler is recognized as one of the best stroke teachers in the world. In GO SWIM POSITIONING TECHNIQUES, Steve shares the single most important concept that has helped him be a better teacher: Know where and how to position yourself in relation to the swimmer... and know how to position the swimmer's body to learn the skills correctly.

"The progressions Steve uses are so good that I use all of his GoSwim DVDs with my University of Iceland students to show them sound teaching progressions in teaching swimming to children as well as how the correct turns should be executed. His DVD on the creative use of mirrors and visual aids is also fantastic. His DVDs are not only informative, interesting and extremely effective in training swimming coaches and teachers but also taught from the heart. These discs are a must for any serious coach/teacher." -- Hafthor Gudmundsson, former Olympic swim coach and assistant professor in swimming skills, University of Iceland.

Steve's positioning techniques, based on more than 30 years of experience as a coach and learn-to-swim instructor, have proven effective for thousands of swimmers, from beginner to advanced, age group to Masters. They really work, and in in this video he makes them accessible for every coach and every swim instructor.

By watching Steve as he gives unrehearsed lessons to real swimmers (age 6, 7, and 8), you'll learn:
• A simple, 5-step progression for teaching each of the four strokes. For each step, you'll learn how to position your body and the swimmer's body for best results.
• Where to stand and how to use your hands to guide your students through the proper kicking, pulling, recovery, and breathing movements.
• How to provide resistance to your swimmers' movements so they learn what it feels like to swim correctly.
• How to make sure the swimmer experiences correct movements and only correct movements. No bad habits to correct later on!
• How to get amazing results by teaching eye to eye and hand to hand.

By watching master instructor Steve Haulfer, you will come away with dozens of inventive and creative ideas for teaching stroke technique. Once you try Steve's positioning techniques, and see the results, you will know that you've reached a new level as a teacher and coach.

STEVE HAUFLER, head coach of the Orinda Country Club in Orinda, California, is considered by many to be a genius at teaching the four strokes and getting kids ready for competitive swimming. His teaching methods are also known to instill a lifelong love of swimming, because he knows how to make lessons fun. Steve's young students (some as young as 5 and 6) progress rapidly from lessons to swim team.

GO SWIM POSITIONING TECHNIQUES was written, filmed, and produced by the team of Glenn Mills, a member of the 1980 Olympic Swim Team, and Barbara Hummel, veteran of two Olympic Trials. Both are coachees, learn-to-swim instructors, and World Top-Ten Masters swimmers.

Steve Haufler, teaching

Responses

Chris Grice	Responded Jun 18, 2010 10:59PM Hello Glenn, Barbara and Steve, Firstly, this is a top site and you are doing a great job with it. Bought the 4 Steve Haufler DVD's and am really pleased with all of them - they make you want to get poolside and do better. There are a lot of great ideas in them and stuff that you realise is very true once it has been explained eg kids not wanting to look directly at their teacher. Seen that many times!!! I was not taught the kinesthetic style of teaching in the UK with the ASA, but having failed completely and utterly to teach beginners breaststroke kick by demonstrating poolside, Steve's techniques make a lot of sense - guiding their limbs into the right strokes and not allowing them to practise wrong strokes is obviously right. My question is, does Steve prepare parents for the kinesthetic method before he teaches it to their children? I don't know how it is in the US but in the UK child protection has become such a big issue that parents simply don't expect their child to be manhandled - even if they were to subsequently become Michael Phelps Part II ! So how does he deal with it? The other thing I wanted to point out was that most of the kids in the DVD's are suspiciously talented swimmers - fes up now, do the techniques work with the untalented? I can really see the benefit of mirrors, and have been looking at purchasing them. My other question is, I know you describe top mirrors as durable - how long have they withstood the pool life - Does the stuck on mirror delaminate after a short period?
Steve Haufler	Responded Jun 19, 2010 10:25PM Hi Chris, Thanks for your comments and questions. I like how you said "that most of the kids in the DVDs are supiciously talented swimmers-fess up now" and do the techniques work with the untalented. Yes, the kids in the swimmers are talented. In fact,the swimmers in" Positioning Techniques" make up my 8&under "A" medley relay. And yes, the more talented the swimmer the faster my techniques work. But we have many young swimmers on our team ( 320 swimmers) who look real good. Just today, at the end of our dual meet with a local team, the opposing coach came up to me with his entire staff, congratulated us on the meet and asked us how we taught butterfly. ( I believe he was impressed with how many of our swimmers looked good )Well, first I said he should buy my DVDs from GoSwim.tv, and all the other goswim DVDs too. I then gave him a 5 minute explanation of our progressions and positioning techniques for butterfly. So...I believe my techniques work for all swimmers. Now, concerning breaststroke kick, there are some swimmers whose ankle, knee, and/or hip stucture seems to create difficulties for them to dorsi flex their feet and turn them out. These kids will often have good free, fly and back kicks, so we don't worry about it too much. Eventually, with age and practice, they get better. And, manipulating the feet and controlling the width of the knees definitely enhances the learning process. Concerning the kinesthetic style of teaching, I remember being taught that way, and specically having the great Pete Cutino ( former and late Cal Berkeley Water Polo coach) grab my hand when I was 10 years old and correcting my freestyle entry). I don't really prepare parents for the kinesthetic method but I do have a pre-season meeting for new parents and I explain our teaching methods such as our use of mirrors, visual aids, and how they will often find our coaches in the water working with the swimmers. They are often IMPRESSED that we are IN the water. And, I wouldn't say the swimmers are "manhandled". We gently stablize the head and/or move the limbs through the correct movements. Concerning the mirrors...we only put then in for a few hours a day and they last for years. I coat the back with a protectant to prolong the life of the silver on the back. Thanks again for your interest.
Chris Grice	Responded Jun 20, 2010 09:50PM Hello Steve, Thanks for your reply and all the information. Well, perhaps "manhandled" was the wrong word! Funnily enough, my 11 yr old daughter has just come back from practise and she has the poor dorsi-flex action - although no-one outkicks her on fly, F/C or B/C, her B/S is her weak stroke - if she turns her feet out, her knees go way out and create a lot of drag, and she can lapse back into a bit of screw kick when tired. So we just did the kick with me holding her feet like you do on the DVD and she did seem to get the idea . I'll get her to try the rubberband restriction and see if she can gradually improve her form. You obviously live in a different world of competence to us, because having an 8 and under 'A' medley relay team kind of implies that there must be a 'B' and even possibly a 'C' team as well......Still, it gives us something to aspire to. Thanks again
Steve Haufler	Responded Jun 23, 2010 05:17PM Hi Chris, I bet your 11 year old daughter has a high foot arch and slightly turned in feet. In addition, she probably has the ability to hyper extend her elbows. Let me know if I am right. We have 41(forty-one) 7-8 girls on our team. I took a look at our roster and I realize we can field 9 legal medley realys. We spend a lot of time on technique, and we often have a coach in the water for every 5 swimmers and a coach on the deck for every 10 swimmers. So, with a group of 30 swimmers (5 in each lane in a 6 lane pool) we will have 6 coaches in the water and 3 on deck. A lot of these coaches are college age or high school swimmers who have been on our team and gone through the system. A lot of our training for our coaches consists of watching GoSwim DVDs. They watch my four and then 8 other GoSwim DVDs.
Chris Grice	Responded Jul 06, 2010 11:20PM Hello Steve, Well, she doesn't have particularly high arches but she is a little pigeon toed and she can hyper extend her elbows marginally (a few degrees). Do these traits normally go together and contribute to a weak breaststroke?? I can see that high arches would make it difficult to catch water and that in- toeing makes dorsi-flex harder, but why should hyper extended elbows be bad? I like the idea of using more experienced swimmers as in-water coaches supporting on- deck coaches. We sometimes use the older swimmers as demonstrators, but this takes it further. As an in-water coach, how many students do you think you can teach effectively in a group? In the DVD's there are never more than 3 or 4, whereas we might be up around 8 or 9 per coach, and if you teach one on one, the others are going to be kicking their heels whilst you work your way around to them. How do you cope with that? I'd be interested to know the titles of the other 8 DVD's you use for training your coaching team! Chris
Steve Haufler	Responded Jul 07, 2010 02:32AM I warm them up with GoSwim All Strokes with Kaitlin Sandeno& Erik Vendt and then we watch the following GoSwim DVDs...Butterfly with Misty Hyman, Backstroke with Aaron Peirsol, Backstroke with Jeff Rouse, Breaststroke with Amanda Beard, Breaststroke with Brendan Hansen, Breaststroke Turns and Pullouts with Dave Denniston, and Freestyle with Kara Lynn Joyce, then Jason Lezak. (Well, I guess that is nine.) I own them all because I also use them to help train my swim school empolyees. However, I know of a few coaches whose swim team board has purchased a complete set of GoSwim DVDs for the team's video library. Concerning slightly hyper extended elbows...a lot of good swimmers have those, especially backstrokers, but I've seen good breastrokers with that trait too, especially women. I have observed , however, a strong link between pigeon toe swimmers and hyper extended elbows. When we have coaches in the water we usually have no more than 6 swimmers (3-4 is real nice) in a lane. The coach on the deck keeps the practice moving...usually 25s and 50s, while all the junior coaches do is start them off correctly or stop them mid -pool to offer corrections and suggestions. The in-the-water coaches also have their goggles on and spend a great deal of time under water watching the swimmers technique. After watching the underwater shots in the GoSwim DVDs, they know what to look for and what is "world class technique". For example, I'll tell my junior coaches, "If they are not gliding in a balanced position like Brendan Hansen on this length of breaststroke, then stop them and correct them." The junior coaches are moving from end-to-end with me (sometimes I am in, sometimes on the deck) as I give the next stroke reminder or instructions.
Chris Grice	Responded Jul 22, 2010 09:21AM Hello Steve, Thanks for that. I have watched the trailers for all those and they look good, but since I am trying to get the club committee to buy mirrors I may have to try to get my fellow teachers to put their hands in their pockets for those DVD's! We could then be working to a common set of technique principles, which would be useful to stop the kids getting mixed messages. We were talking about getting a better swimmer to coach ratio last night, so we will be looking for more volunteers. The problem I see with having in water coaches is the inevitable lane pile-up when the coach stops a swimmer, but I guess they get used to the occasional pit stop for guidance. Plus the in-water coaches have to be strong technically to know what to correct, but I guess that is where the DVD training comes in. We would have some way to go on that. I can see it would be an excellent system, though, once up and running, and would probably help the inwater coaches with their own technique as well.
Gary Condit	Responded Mar 11, 2011 06:23PM I am a first year coach and am interested in buying this video. I have a question first though. Should I buy the Teaching Progressions video or the Positioning Techniques video first? Which would be a better first choice in teaching young swimmers? Thank you.
Glenn Mills	Responded Mar 11, 2011 07:42PM It's actually a great question. I think knowing the progressions is going to be the most important. A caring teacher can figure out some of the positioning when you know what you're ultimately going for. If you could only pick one, I'd say it would be progressions... but ultimately, both early on would be great. :)
Juliette	Responded Mar 12, 2011 06:22AM I like the excersive on the backstroke legs with the board on them.....I noticed that the coach and swimmer are having fun and trust......(The Dad)

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